Most of us spend too much unproductive time in front of social media during the day. Like Alec Baldwin’s alien character in the recent Hulu Super Bowl commercial says, “What are you going to do, turn off your TV and your computer? Ha!”

It’s sadly true. Television is one of the most unproductive habits you can engage yourself in. Though some people advocate getting rid of your TV altogether, I think I’d rather be slightly unproductive than miss Lost.  The internet and social media have together created another hole for us to get trapped in.  But, we have a choice: keep digging, or stay out.

I love Facebook.  It allows me (much more-so than MySpace did) to keep in touch with current friends, family, and even friends I haven’t seen face-to-face for 10+ years.  However, if you let yourself get overwhelmed with invitations, wall-posts, and applications – it’s easy for just this one site alone to consume you.  Here’s a few tips to make your Facebook time less interfering and more productive.

- Write down what you want your Facebook experience to be.  For me, it’s simply to stay in touch with people.
- Turn off email alerts.  This will prevent you from clicking through every time someone adds you to something and distracting you from what you were focused on.
- Block invitations from people or applications.  I appreciate you want to give me a bumper sticker, but it doesn’t do anything for my life (or yours).
- Set aside time for Facebook.  If you know you’ll only spend 15 minutes each day checking friends, leaving messages, etc – you’ll now have the rest of the day freed up to build your empire.

These tips can be translated to almost any site that is sucking your productivity away.  I’ll put together a Twitter post another time, but for now – do whatever it takes to make your online life less of a distraction.

How do you prevent social sites from eating up your productivity?

Productivity Workflow

First, state your goals of your productivity system and workflow.  For me, I wanted a quick easy way to get ideas out of my head, a way to organize those ideas, and a way to turn those ideas into actionable goals and items.  Seems simple, but when you try using a million different tools to get it done, it turns into a sloppy mess of a nightmare.

Next, we’ll take a quick inventory of tools or resources we currently use, would like to use, or need to find.  My list included three different todo applications!!  How am I supposed to be productive when I’m using so many different programs that all do that same thing? I narrowed down my list to the following items – below each item is a notation about what role it plays in my personal productivity workflow:

Things for iPhone and Mac

Things is an application for Mac and iPhone.  You may not use either of these, but here is what it gives me, personally: the ability to quickly enter items that come accross my mind, wirelessly sync those items to the desktop version, then organize into projects and life-areas.  Granted, I can also do some organizing on the phone, but the phone app is much better at grabbing information, doing a little editing, and viewing your ongoing lists and projects.

Another thing that is invaluable to me, and why I use Things over several other applications I’ve tried, is the ability to easily pick which items to do today!  This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are a lot of list applications that just… well… list stuff.  Sure you can put them into projects and prioritize, but I want to get up and the morning, go through my actions/lists and determine what needs to be done right now.

Evernote for iPhone and Desktop

Evernote has come a long, long way since it first started out.  I remember using it a long time ago and just kind of thinking, “this is alright.”  Now, I don’t know if I could make it a day without using it.  It’s that good!

Basically, Evernote is a digital note-taking application.  You can use it’s Firefox browser plugin to grab snippets or entire websites, you can use it’s iPhone, Mac, or PC application to take notes – long or short – photos, audio?  Sure.  And it handles it all with ease.  It allows me to take a project or todo item and really expand on it.  Can you use paper for this?  Sure you can, but what if I want to take a note at the office PC, then need it at home on the Mac? Or need it across town at a business lunch?  I forgot my notebook!!  Not with Evernote you didn’t.

Google Calendar

Not much to say here, but I use and swear-by Google Calendar.  Simple and accessible from anywhere (it syncs to my iPhone calendar using Neuvasync).

Moleskine Notebooks

You probably thought I was anti-paper or something.  But I’m really not.  I LOVE notebooks – nice ones, that is.  Aside from Google Calendar for scheduling, I also have a Moleskine Calendar sitting on my desk all day.  I use it to take quick phone notes, and jot notes about the appointments in it.

You’ll also find me with a new Moleskine Volant notebook – a credit-card sized Moleskine with perforated pages for quick notes on the go.

I also use a standard ruled Moleskine for journalling.

What does all this mean?  I can quickly get things out of my head, a daily review to turn all those things into actionable items, and a weekly review to make sure I’m on track.  Things is the main part of my productivity plan right now, but I encourage you you find your own.  Your personal, and business life will thank you!